Kazakhstan bathes in the sunshine of political change, with referendum on constitutional reform.

Summer comes swiftly in the Kazakh capital, Nur-Sultan, with soaring temperatures in late April replacing the freezing winter cold. People expect that every year, it’s the increasing pace of political change that’s been sudden and to an extent unexpected, writes Political Editor Nick Powell from Nur-Sultan

When President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev addressed the Assembly of the People of Kazakhstan on Friday, there was much he could say about how the political climate has been turned around since the events at the start of the year, known as Tragic January.

Then peaceful protests about price rises were followed by violence and an armed conflict between armed individuals and the police. Over 220 people were killed and nearly 10,000 arrested. Russian troops were called in under the Collective Security Treaty to help guard buildings but they soon left again.

Afterwards, the reaction of the President was to accelerate political reforms, in order to transform Kazakhstan from a ‘super-presidential’ republic to what his Secretary of State, Erlan Karin, has called a ‘classic’ presidential republic, without extraordinary powers and privileges for the head of state.

The formula ‘strong president, influential parliament, accountable government’ calls for the rewriting of more than a third of Kazakhstan’s constitution. But the Secretary of State Erlan Karin, who plays a powerful role in the presidential administration, told journalists ahead of the President’s speech that despite the size of the task, the fundamental changes should be made in the next two to three months.

“There is an understanding of these reforms, there is a public support for these reforms, so we should start implementing them as soon as possible”, he said.

What was unexpected was the President’s announcement in his speech that the changes would be put to a referendum. He didn’t name a date but it is expected that the ambitious timetable described by Erlan Karin will be followed.

The referendum announcement came midway through the speech to the People’s Assembly, a consultative body that was set up to reflect the multi-ethnic structure of Kazakhstan. President Tokayev first wanted to stress that the principle that Kazakh national identity is based on citizenship, not ethnicity, will be as important as ever in the new Second Republic.

He said ethnic groups must remain united in a single set of civic values, as had been achieved since independence. The President also stressed that the growing status of the Kazakh language was not going to undermine the position of Russian, which became the dominant language in Soviet times.

“Kazakhstan is a multi-lingual country, the Kazakh language is the state language but the Russian language is also important in our lives”, he stated before moving on to the proposed constitutional reforms and announcing the referendum.

He pointed out that the constitution itself required that citizens should be asked to vote on constitutional changes but that had failed to happen on four occasions since the referendum on the original constitution in 1995.

He went on to say that to build a new Kazakhstan, there would have to be a change in public values. “We will put up a resolute barrier against nepotism and paternalism, corruption and compradorism”, he said.

President Tokayev is clearly making a decisive break with the era of his predecessor, Nursultan Nazarbayev, the first President of Kazakhstan and until recently still a highly influential figure.

Secretary of State Erlan Karin described how he and the President agreed to political reforms with officials at midnight and then the two of them continued their discussion until 5 am.

“It was a response to the characteristics of family power, we knew that the public were not satisfied by this under the previous president”, he told journalists, adding that the reforms were more than a response to the January events but “some of the initiatives” were.

Which individuals and groupings were behind what the authorities are certain was organised and co-ordinated armed violence in January remains a matter of criminal investigation. “Only investigation will tell us who was behind the events but it is obvious that the objective was a coup d’etat”, was Erlan Karin’s blunt assessment.

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